11-04-06

Europe Semiconductor market is growing

Europe Dominates Analog ASSP Market

European chip giant STMicroelectronics continues to hold the lead in the analog ASSP market, as 2006 is poised to be a growth year for analog ASSP players, market researcher Databeans said today.

The market research firm's study on the analog ASSP market shows that STMicro held 20 percent of the 2005 $20.2 billion market, followed by fellow European chipmaker Infineon Technologies with 14 percent of the market. Europe's Philips Semiconductors and U.S. chipmaker Texas Instruments are tied for third place in the market with 12 percent share each, according to Databeans.

Meanwhile, 2006 should provide revenue growth opportunities for STMicro, along with other handset baseband, processor, and power management chip providers, as 3G production continues to escalate, the market researcher said. It estimates that this segment of the wireless chip industry will generate $7.3 billion in revenue for this year.

For no. 2 analog ASSP player Infineon, its wireless handset revenue constitutes 34 percent of its overall analog revenue, according to Databeans. Its current product offering serves the low-end and 2G handset space, but the company roadmap has set the goal of recognizing revenue from 3G platforms by Q3 of this year, the market researcher noted.

Furthermore, the impending separation of Infineon's DRAM business will consolidate business segments, and analog will become the largest contributing business segment, accounting for more than half the company revenue, Databeans observed. In 2005, memory products accounted for over 40 percent of Infineon's sales.

As for the rest of the top 5, Freescale has the largest contribution to total analog revenue with 49 percent, followed by Philips with 44 percent, and TI with 19 percent. TI's wireless handset analog revenue, combined with its massive handset DSP sales, constituted 41 percent of that company's total semiconductor revenue for 2005, the market researcher noted.